Of Dreams and Rings
by JessieLightyear
Summary: In which James has a nightmare, Sirius is attacked by a curtain rod, and two lives are forever changed. Mostly a Sirius/James friendship story, but lots of Jily mentions.


**I do not own Harry Potter, I'm just a simple girl with a laptop and a brain (and an obsession with Jily). **

**Big thanks to the beta/support of chewinggumandpencils **

I hate being woken up early. There are only two times when it's acceptable to be woken up early: Christmas and your birthday. This is one of the most important rules I have, one that must never be broken under any circumstances. After a late night like the one I'd had, the last thing I needed was to have my rule broken. No exceptions, for anyone. Ever.

"Padfoot! Padfoot! Wake up!" A rule my roommate and lifelong friend, James 'Prongs' Potter had kindly forgotten one Thursday morning as he shook me awake. I threw a pillow in his face.

"Rule number one" I muttered as I rolled over.

"Padfoot, this is important! It's just one question! Please." I groaned and sat up. I stretched up and yawned loudly then rubbed my eyes and looked at James,

"What?"

"Is Lily marrying Snape?" he asked. I laughed; I had to still be dreaming. No one would ever believe that, it was ridiculous. "Okay, Dream-Prongs, you're forgiven. I'm going back to bed."

"No honestly, is she marrying Snape?" Prongs had a completely solemn look on his face. "No, why would she marry Snape?" I asked clearly showing irritation in my voice. This is what I had to wake up for?

"Because she, I don't know. But she was, I saw her walking down the aisle and everything. It was…" He shuddered and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Well then, why don't you marry her Prongs?" I asked sarcastically, burying my face back into my pillow,

"I… yes, Padfoot! That's the only way to save her from marrying Snape!"

"Okay, Prongs."

"Padfoot, get up we have to go get a ring!" Prongs bolted up from my bed and ran to the closet.

"Wait. Now?" I asked.

"Yes now! There's not a minute to lose. Get dressed, Padfoot!"

"Why do I have to come?" I asked.

"Because you're my friend, you have to help me pick it out."

"Why don't you take one of Lily's friends?"

"I don't have time for that, come on let's go." I moaned.

"Sirius, I am calling your assistance in the name of the Marauders and our bond to be brothers for life." Crap. He had to put it like that. I sighed and sat up,

"Alright, but you owe me an hour and a half of sleep." I said.

45 minutes later, we were standing in a jewelry store with James. He'd gotten it down to two rings that were exactly alike except for one had a gold band and the other had silver.

"Come on Sirius, the gold band or the silver one?" James asked me again. I slowly pulled my head up from its happy little resting spot on my arms and looked at them again,

"I don't know, James." I told him putting my head back down, "What about the one you got last time?"

"Wait. Which ring?" He asked,

"Remember, we were here like two months ago and you were looking at rings." James looked over the rings and then the realization hit him.

"We were here two months ago." he said.

"Right, you found the one that you said was perfect and bought it. Remus was here, he'll tell you." James nodded and looked at the rings in his hand.

"Then… why are we here?" he asked.

"I don't know. You wanted to come." I reminded him.

"We have to get home and find that ring." he said urgently.

"Alright, back home." I said standing up. I stood up and headed toward the door. James followed me then looked back at the rings.

"Well… what about-"

"Let's go, James."

"Now where did I put it?" he asked as when we got back to the loft.

"I don't remember." I said, "Maybe your sock drawer." James looked at me.

"Come on Padfoot, I would not put my engagement ring in the sock drawer." I shrugged.

"That's where you used to put important stuff in school."

"Padfoot, I was stupid when we were in school!"

"Well… some things never change." I said smirking.

"Oye, shut it."

"Excuse me are or are we not looking for an engagement ring that you first forgot you bought and then forgot where you put it? I feel like I'm entitled to call you stupid right now." James glared at me then got one of those grins. One of those grins he gets when he thinks he's got a brilliant idea but it's actually awful. One of these days that grin is going to kill me. James pulled out his wand and held it above his head.

"Accio Ring" he said.

The next thing I remember is the curtain rod hitting my forehead.

I woke up with James sitting over me.

"You okay Padfoot?" he asked.

"What happened?" I asked, sitting up.

"Well I summoned the ring, but I also summoned all the rings in the apartment." he explained. I looked over and saw a small pile of all kinds of rings. Earrings that Lily had left, the Marauder's rings that James and I were both wearing, a nose ring from a wilder phase of mine, as well as the curtain rod and the shower rod.

"So why did the curtain rod attack me?"

"The rings on the rod that hold up the curtain were summoned too."

"Alright, that explains it. Did you find the ring?"

"Oh yeah right here" he held up the black velvet box,

"Good, get that on Evan's or well To-Be-Potter's finger, I'm going to sleep this off."

"Ahh, not yet."

"Why not?"

"How do I ask her?" I gave James a blank stare.

"Are you really asking me this?"

"Um… yeah"

"How should I know Prongs? I've never thought about asking a girl to marry me, there's probably a million ways to. Moony is the one you want to talk to about this."

"Moony's on some mission and won't be back for three days."

"Okay, so… you might want to start with dinner" I suggested. Prongs would probably get a great idea once someone got the ball rolling.

"Okay, dinner um… she likes bread."

"Okay, and what else are you going to serve with that?"

"She likes spaghetti."

"Okay, spaghetti and bread…"

"Yeah, I can make some… oh and then… yes just like that! I just need to get her out of the house for a bit, but I can ask Alice to do that. Alright, I just have to get the stuff and put it all together!" Alright he had a plan, I wonder if could still pick up on my dream. There had been a very exciting brunette in it. "Padfoot, where are you going?"

"Um… to bed..."

"Not just yet, I need your help with one more thing."

"What?"

Guard Duty.

The bloody man had put me on guard duty!

I could be sleeping!

But no, I have to watch and warn him if Lily is coming back.

"Is she here?"

"No."

"Okay good" I flopped on the couch and picked up one of the magazines. It was some knitting magazine or something; I put it back on the table and walked into the kitchen.

"Are you sure I can't help with something?" I asked.

"No, you have to watch for Lily!"

"Alright" I walked back to the living room, "Hey what brought this all on?" I asked.

"What brought all of what on?"

"This whole proposal thing, last time I heard you were waiting for that special moment."

"Oh, nothing…"

"Yeah right, I bet it had something to do with that insanity you were going on about earlier. You know, that stuff about Lily marrying Snape." James didn't say anything. "Come on Prongs, if you're going to drag me around all day you might as well give me an interesting story!"

"Fine, but this is Marauder's confidential, got it?"

"Alright, just get on with it."

"I had this dream last night. In it Lily was getting married… to Snape. Somehow she'd gotten this idea that he was right for her or something. I don't know. Anyway, in my dream I got to the church. You all were there for some reason. I don't know, anyway. At first we had all these big plans to ruin the wedding, but when the time came it was just me. I stood up and got glorified looks from everyone in the room, because clearly I was not the only one who thought she shouldn't be marrying that grease bag, but it didn't matter because I only saw her. I said my part that it probably wasn't a surprise that I was interrupting a wedding like this, but that is was a surprise that she was marrying the wrong boy, the entirely wrong boy."

"Okay… so why did you freak out? Sounds like a happy ending to me."

"Cause I never got an answer, I woke up before Lily said anything."

"Oh, so you want to just avoid that all together?"

"Exactly."

"Okay."

"So, is she here? I'm almost ready."

"Not yet" As soon as I said, that a loud pop came from outside, "Hey she just showed up!"

"Agh, she's here! You've got to get out of here, Padfoot." I nodded and headed out the back door. Then, I apparated away. I walked inside and oh what a sight.

"Hey Beautiful, sorry about leaving you earlier, but you know how it is." I said then flopped down on the bed eager for a long restful night.

Now you'd think after giving up an entire day for my dear friend Prongs would at least let me sleep in a bit.

"Padfoot Padfoot! Wake up! Guess what Sirius!" I slammed my face deeper into the pillow. "Padfoot she said yes!" I picked up the other pillow and smacked James across the face with it for the second time that day.


End file.
